


Catastrophe (Breeds Strength)

by sock_bealady



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Gang Rape, HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-01 15:50:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11489634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sock_bealady/pseuds/sock_bealady
Summary: Not long after the events of Iron Man 3, the Avengers are captured by what they thought were friends.  Rumlow promises they won't remember a thing.  Steve is starting to hope he's right.





	1. Breaking In

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags. The underage warning is me being cautious - Chapter 3 contains references to Natasha's bad childhood. This is my first foray into the MCU and is based on a prompt from the hydratrashmeme.

It takes Steve approximately thirty seconds after waking up in a cage to realize that they're in trouble.

It takes him over two hours to admit it, and when he does, Tony crows like he's just won big. "Ah, _thank you._ Everybody, can I get three cheers for Captain Obvious and that oh-so-insightful assessment of the situation?"

He doesn't get any cheers. Bruce is slumped in the far corner, drooling a little from whatever elephant-tranqs were dart-gunned into him. Clint is nowhere to be seen, which isn't doing good things for Steve's heart rate. Natasha's slouched against the bars, cuffed at the wrists and ankles. Despite that, she manages to make her posture look casual. She rolls her eyes at Tony. "Haven't heard you being useful lately, brain trust."

Tony puts an affronted hand to his chest, where the scars from his heart surgery are just barely healed. "Oh, I was useful. I was useful back at the Tower, remember? When I said we should _wait for Thor_? And promptly got overruled?

Steve's shoulders are aching. For the hundredth time, he strains against the cuffs that hold his arms above his head. There's no give. He switches from trying to wrench his arms apart to yanking down, hoping to dislodge the chain that stretches up to the ceiling. That doesn't do anything except hurt his biceps and open new sores in his ankles where more metal bites in. He gives up and huffs in frustration. Maybe if their captors had been dumb enough just to hang him by his wrists, he would have been able to kick and grapple with his legs. He probably couldn't have escaped without help, but he could have at least made them pay for it. But, no, they just had to get caught by _smart_ bad guys - ones with the foresight to chain his feet not just down but _apart._ He feels like an animal skin stretched out to dry.

He gives up on the momentary distraction and answers Tony. "We don't know when Thor will be back from Asgard. And if that alien tech gets into the wrong hands, Somalia is going to end up as so much melted slag."

"Gee, Cap, thank you so much for piling on the pressure. I really don't think any of us were feeling driven enough."

Steve ignores him and takes a good, long lungful of the sticky air. They're still in Uganda, he's pretty sure. He's not hungry enough for them to have been out for more than a few hours. There's a tiny, barred window near the ceiling of his cell. It's just a light shaft, really, with only dirty concrete and the faintest reflected sunlight making it through. But, it's still daylight, so they haven't had them for long. They haven't had _Clint_ for long. At least Nat, Bruce, and Tony are all in the same cell. It's dank and dripping and lacks even his sorry excuse for a window, but only a wall of bars separates Steve from them. If his hands were free and he didn't mind throwing his back out for a week, he could probably bend those bars enough to get to them, although even Natasha couldn't hope to fit out the window, if they could somehow get it open.

"We should have had plenty of firepower." Nat is staring at Bruce's still form and wearing that blank expression that she gets on the rare occasions that she's scared. "How the hell did they shut down the Hulk?"

Steve closes his eyes. "Widow, check his vitals."

"Again?" Tony says quietly.

"Just check."

She has to inchworm-crawl to get to Bruce, but she does it without comment. After a moment, she looks at Steve and nods. "No change. Heart rate's still about twenty, but he's breathing. Pulses are strong."

"Okay. They found a way to shut him down. How?"

Tony throws up his hands in mock surprise when he finds both of them looking at him. "I dunno, but I kind of want to shake their hands. Between Bruce and me, we've tried pretty much every form of energy or chemical we could get our hands on. Nothing stops the Hulk once he decides to hulk."

"The lullaby does," Nat says quietly, "Sometimes."

Now it's Tony's turn to roll his eyes. "Great. So, our going theory is that they've found a way to weaponize your fucking lullaby."

She shoots him a disparaging look and addresses her comments to Steve. "The only thing we've found to work is _psychological._ That flash of light that knocked us all out? It must have gotten into his head, somehow. _That_ means mind control."

"And that means the scepter," Steve finishes, "So, we're close."

"Whoop-de-doo!" Tony snaps, "I'm sure that'll make for a snappy epitaph on our tombstones. 'Here lie the Avengers. They were close.'"

Steve bites back on the instinct to snap at him. Though he's the only one not restrained, Tony must be feeling the most helpless of all. There's no sign of the suit, and while they were sleeping someone had even stripped off the spandex undergarments, leaving him in just his briefs. There's a bleeding gash just below his elbow where they dug out the backup biometric reader that would have summoned his armor. If he still had the arc reactor in his chest, there's no telling what he could have cooked up. But then again, if he'd still had the arc reactor in his chest they might have just ripped it out and let his heart stop.

They've never said it - never had the conversation - but everyone knows that it's up to Steve to act as the officer among them. For field tactics, when there's no time to discuss, he's the one who makes the snap judgments and calls out the orders that they stand or fall on. More than that, when they're in over their heads, he's the one responsible for the wellbeing of the team - for making it through in one piece. This is especially true for Tony, who's practically a civilian still, despite acting as Iron Man for years.

"SHIELD will send a search party when we miss our rendezvous," he says, keeping his voice steady. Then, because Tony is smarter than the average bear and probably won't be fooled by easy promises, he adds, "The trouble is, that's next week."

They're silent for a beat. "I might have gotten a signal out," Natasha puts in, "When that first goon dropped his radio? I had just enough time to wipe the encryption and send out an SOS."

"Who'd you call?"

"Anybody listening. It was barely more than a ham radio - short range. There's a chance it might get picked up by a US or UN listening station, though."

Steve sighs. "Not likely. There's not much of an intelligence presence in this part of Africa." He jerks his head vaguely in the direction he thinks is east. "The neighbors don't care for it."

"Well, aren't you just a Debbie Downer."

Steve doesn't answer. He's thinking. Any search team would probably start from the air. It would be easy enough to get permission from the Ugandan government, but this stretch of jungle to the east is controlled by the warlord with the alien tech. If they've got a weapon that can shut down the Hulk, some shoulder-mounted RPGs are small potatoes. And, of course, no one's crazy enough to try flying in from the east.

His hopeless train of thought is interrupted by a clang from beyond the bars of the twin cells. A steel door swings open with a groan. Steve settles his weight into the balls of his feet as best he can and sets himself. He's expecting more of the warlord's thugs, but the half dozen men who file through the door are clearly American. His first thought is that they must be sweltering in their black tactical gear.

Steve's face relaxes and relief forces a short laugh out of him. "Rumlow. Man am I glad to see you."

The SHIELD agent smirks, his rifle dropping to his side. "You sure? Seems like I caught you at a bad time." He has a key, and the door to Steve's cell opens smoothly.

Steve snorts and shifts a little in his restraints. "Been better. Look, Brock, have you found Barton yet? We haven't seen him since they knocked us out, and God knows when that was."

"Don't worry about it," Rumlow says lightly, approaching Steve. "Got you strung up pretty good, huh?"

Only worry for Clint keeps Steve from rolling his eyes. "Yeah, laugh it up. We still owe you."

Rumlow steps to within arm's reach and pulls something from his pocket. Steve is expecting more keys, but it turns out to be a black smart phone. Stark Industries model. He points it in the direction of Steve's torso and snaps a picture. "Damn right you do."

Steve huffs. Rumlow isn't known for taking things seriously, but this is a little ridiculous. "I'd better not find that on Reddit." 

He expects Rumlow to make some crack about how nonagenarians shouldn't use Reddit. He expects him to do it while pulling keys out of his pocket or just shooting the chains off with his rifle. He expects the other five agents to do _something_ to free his team. None of those things happen. Instead, Rumlow just laughs, low and dark in his throat, and Steve feels his first twinge of unease.

"C'mon," he tries, keeping his voice steady, "Get me down from here. Once we get out of here, I'll buy you all a drink."

" _I'll_ buy you all a drink," Tony interjects. His voice is strained, proving that Steve isn't crazy. Something is very wrong here. "And a Mercedes. Whatever the fuck you want, I can promise it'll be more than these thugs are paying you."

Steve looks at him. "These are SHIELD guys, Tony."

Tony's face is very serious. "No, Steve. They're not."

There's another long beat of silence. "Where the hell is Clint?" Natasha snarls.

Rumlow laughs again, and this time there's no missing the ugliness in it. "I said don't worry about it. Your little man in tights is fine. Boss needs his scrambled brain to put the finishing touches on the new tech." He hands off his rifle to one of his pals and draws a knife. Steps close to Steve. Too close. "If I were you, I'd worry about problems closer to home."

Steve glares at him. "How much _are_ they paying you? What's it worth to you, to betray SHIELD?"  
He really wishes he could wipe that shit-eating grin off Rumlow's face. "Oh Cap. Buddy. The naiveté thing really works for you, you know that?" He runs the flat of his blade lightly over Steve's chest, tugging on the thin tee shirt. "I never betrayed SHIELD. You know what SHIELD is? It's a pretty little lie. It's taking all the fucked up shit that governments do and wrapping it in red, white, and blue so that people like _you,_ " his knife catches the collar of Steve's shirt and tugs a small rip, "Don't think to stop people like me." He cuts down, grazing the skin without enough force to scratch but cutting through the cotton like butter.

Steve doesn't react. It's very important that he _not react,_ no matter what happens next. Less because he cares what Rumlow thinks and more because Tony and Natasha are _right there._

"Did the Ugandans get the alien tech from you? Something you scrounged up from the mess in Manhattan?"

Rumlow "Trying baby's first reverse interrogation? I like the effort, Rogers, but you're out of your depth." He cuts along either shoulder, and the shirt flutters to the ground, brushing Steve's bare thighs.

"What've you done to Agent Barton?"

"Jesus, you're like a broken record about that guy! I told you already, your mascot's fine." The other agents still aren't doing anything - just watching from beyond the bars and occasionally muttering to each other. Rumlow stalks around to stand behind Steve.

There's tension from the other side of the room. Steve glances over and is surprised to see that Natasha is the source. Her face is locked down tight, and when he meets her gaze, she shakes her head slightly.

Steve realizes what she's seen a moment later when Rumlow's fingers reach out to play idly at the elastic of his boxers. He's been stripped of every piece of his combat suit, leaving just the now-destroyed shirt and his underwear. With a quick cut down one thigh, Rumlow makes short work of this last-remaining barrier. Steve hears the artificial click of a phone camera. A moment later, Rumlow walks around to his front and take another picture. 

Steve forces himself to sneer. "Need more for Reddit?"

"Something like that." By the angle of the phone, the next picture is directed lower. "I've got a stressful job, Agent Rogers. Long hours, lots of travel, minimal downtime. But, it does come with its perks." He's walking behind Steve again, and it's all Steve can do not to try to follow him with his eyes. He steals another glance at his team instead. Natasha's face is stony. Tony is pale and uncharacteristically silent, which means he's barely holding it together. "Like now, for instance. We've got all the time we need to get what we want out of your pet, and nothing to do with you besides keep you occupied. Which makes this one of my rare opportunities to mix business with pleasure."

An open-handed swat catches him straight across the ass and, though he'd been expecting some kind of blow, it's all Steve can do not to jerk in surprise. "They teach you that in torture-school?" he drawls once he's sure he can get his voice steady.

He can hear the smile in Rumlow's voice. "No. They taught me _this._ " His finger presses very lightly at the base of Steve's tailbone and is slowly dragged down. Steve focuses on taking one deep, slow breath. This is going to be exactly as bad as he'd thought.

"Agent Rumlow," he keeps his tone very even, "When I get out of this - and I will - you and I are going to have a talk about professional behavior. You're not going to enjoy it."

Rumlow's free hand rests on Steve's shoulder, surprisingly warm. He laughs again, now so close that Steve can feel his breath against his skin. "No, Cap, we're not." His finger rubs a slow circle around Steve's hole. "There's two ways this can go. Either the tech fails and we dig five holes. Or it works. You wanna know what happens if it works, Rogers?" Steve is too focused on staying absolutely still to respond. Rumlow leans closer. " _Absolutely nothing,_ that's what. You go back to work. We do the Niger op together next week. I spot you for your Starbucks order. You finally pay me back that twenty bucks you owe me. And nothing we do here today is gonna change that."

Steve knows he should be pushing - should be trying to play off of Rumlow's growing sense of power to get more details of this mysterious weapon that they apparently need Clint for. That's the whole point of a reverse interrogation, or so he's been told. The trouble is, he knows all this only dimly in the back of his mind. The trouble is, reason and strategy are nothing but a distant whisper, overwhelmed by the silent scream of panic. He's talked to Natasha about what she does. He knows that she's endured beatings and worse in pursuit of information. But this . . . this is too much. Hardly anything has even happened yet, and it's already too much.

He hopes Nat is listening to Rumlow's little speech. Steve knows he's gonna be shit at remembering the details.

Dry skin and a sharp nail catch on the rim of his asshole. Steve's resolve not to give him the satisfaction finally breaks, and he twitches away. Jeers and catcalls break out from across the room. Steve keeps his eyes locked on the far corner of the cell, where the bars reach up and join with the ceiling. He counts the rivets and rust marks even as Rumlow's hand moves away to stroke almost comfortingly at his hip. "Don't worry, Rogers," he whispers into his ear, "I'm not gonna take you dry. That wouldn't be any fun for either of us." There's the quiet _snick_ of a cap and then ( _shit_ ) something cool and wet is sliding down his crease.

"Get the fuck away from him!" That's Tony's voice, too distraught for anything more clever, and the reminder makes Steve flinch.

"Or what?" Rumlow laughs.

Steve doesn't look away from the empty corner, but he hears soft footfalls and he can imagine Tony coming close and reaching out to grip the bars. "Think about who you're talking to, Jackboot Number One. Are we really the kind of people you want to piss off?"

"Nice try, _Iron Man,_ Rumlow says over a swell of derisive laughter, "But in case you haven't noticed, you're not in a position to make threats. Maybe if you had your little toys to blast us with, but I don't see them. Do you?"

There's silence as Steve is stung by the echo of an old argument. _"Take all that away and what are you?"_ He doesn't have long to feel guilty about Tony, though, because there's a finger at his hole, pushing in slowly. Despite the slick, his breath hitches at the unfamiliar sting.

Rumlow is still talking to Tony, and somehow that makes it so much worse. "Don't make threats you can't back up, rich boy. Now, I'm going to fuck your precious Captain America. And if you and the bitch are quiet and behave yourselves, I'll use plenty of lube so I don't hurt him too badly. Keep getting on my nerves and I can promise you he won't enjoy the ride."

Tony falls silent. Steve knows that he should look at him - should reassure him that it's okay - but he just can't make himself do it. Rumlow's finger is in as deep as it will go, just resting there for a moment. "You have no idea how long I've wanted this," he breathes into Steve's ear as his finger begins to shift a little, back and forth, "You've got no clue what you do to people, do you? With that tight ass and that fucking poster boy face."

Steve does know. He used to be an _actual_ poster boy, after all. The old USO tours had provided a crash course in resisting unwanted advances, from women and men alike. Those encounters, though, had always had the feel of comedy - just a collection of stories to laugh about with the chorus line. _"Remember that guy in Portland? He must've drank half a liquor store first." "That dame in Chicago? Sixty years old if she was a day." "Those two teenagers in Atlanta who wanted to go at it together? What do you even say to that?"_ There'd never been a real threat - certainly not one that got this far.

Steve has to try one more tactic or he won't be able to live with himself after. "Brock," he says quietly, "This isn't you. You're a good agent, whoever you work for. Nobody needs to get hurt."

Rumlow's snort is a warm puff of air against the back of his neck. "What, because nobody ever gets hurt on a _Captain America_ mission? Who do you think you work with, a bunch of choir boys with guns? You think none of those guys watching your back ever got a little piece of ass while you were slinging freedom into some hellhole a quarter mile away?"

He shoves another finger in and pumps, and the discomfort is a welcome distraction. Steve's not ready for the third that follows a moment later. The stretch and burn force a short gasp out of him and he swallows hard. Maybe there's just slightly more humanity left in Rumlow than it seems or maybe he just likes the rush of power, but Steve's reaction seems to draw something out of him. His hand slows while the other slides around Steve's front to stroke softly over his abdominals. "Easy, big guy," he whispers, too low for anyone else to hear, "Hurting you isn't on the agenda for today. Just relax. Not like you can do much else."

The guys just outside the bars are starting to grumble with impatience. One of them - a thickly-built agent that Steve's passed in the Triskelion hallways dozens of times - yells out "You gonna buy him dinner and roses first?"

"Shut the fuck up and wait your turn!"

Steve hears a strangled sound and it takes a minute to work out that it came from Tony. It could so easily have come from his own throat. Dimly, he reflects that he shouldn't have expected anything different. That doesn't stop him from sacrificing a little more dignity to twist and struggle while clenching painfully around the fingers. Rumlow makes a few attempts to settle him before giving up and just wrapping an arm around Steve's hips. Stretched out like that, Steve can't do much besides rub the skin off his wrists and ankles. "Fine," Rumlow growls, "Get it out of your system. Won't change anything." He sounds pissy, but he removes all but one finger from Steve's ass. His pelvis grinds against Steve, at first just heavy material and an armored cup. Then there's an alarming rasp of a zipper and the sudden heat of hard flesh against him.

Somehow, Steve has never actually had occasion to test whether serum-induced super strength applies to his sphincter. Either Rumlow has an impressive pain tolerance or it doesn't. Despite the blood starting to trickle down his forearms, he could keep twisting and straining against the chains for a while - all day. But, to his horror, he feels other muscles starting to fatigue. Rumlow feels it too. He's leaning back, his hand retreating and then returning slimy with lube . . .

The slick, blunt pressure comes just as Steve's body fails him and begins to relax. He redoubles his struggles, but Rumlow is done waiting. His dick slides in with a few shallow thrusts - not fast, but insistent. Breath leaves Steve in a rush. The pain is . . . not that bad. No worse than three fingers had been, as long as he stays still. It's the vulnerability of it that's getting to him. He has to fight down the crazy feeling that he'll be torn apart if he so much as moves. The fear and the simple _wrongness_ of the situation coil in his throat and he has to clamp his jaw shut to keep from retching. He tries to push forward off the balls of his feet even though it'll wrench his shoulders something awful, but he can't get any leverage with Rumlow's hands on his hips.

"Easy, Rogers," Rumlow purrs, "Just gotta get you loosened up a bit." He seats himself all the way with a few more short thrusts. "The guys aren't all that careful with their toys." He pulls out and pushes back in slow, a thrust that clearly has little to do with _getting him ready_ and a lot to do with Rumlow getting his rocks off. He groans loudly. "Jesus, _fuck,_ you feel that? God, you're tight."

And, yeah, Steve is hurting and scared and more than a little nauseated, but he's also pissed as hell, and he'll be damned if he lets Rumlow know this is getting to him. "I'm sorry, did you start already?" he drawls in his most bored tone, "I thought that was your pinky."

Tony's obnoxiously loud laugh gets cut off in a hurry when Rumlow hisses, draws back, and slams into him. Steve can't quite hold back a small grunt of pain, and this seems to mollify his assailant a little. Not much, but a little. "Arrogant bastard," Rumlow says as he thrusts quick and shallow, "You won't be such a smartass when we're done with you."

"Wanna put some money on that?" Steve growls back because he's never known when to stop, "How about twenty bucks?"

Rumlow snorts, and Steve remembers with a pang that of all the guys at SHIELD, Rumlow's always had one of the better senses of humor. He'd seemed to appreciate Steve's quips and occasional sarcasm. Steve wonders if, even then as he'd flashed wry grins and offered witty comebacks of his own, if he'd been imagining _this._ "Y'know," the man's voice is low and gravelly in his ear, "You were supposed to get wiped at the end of this. Or just put down with the rest of your little team. But, now I wonder if they'll let us keep you. It'd be fun to see how long it takes to break in the great Captain Rogers."

Rumlow is sweating now, even more than Steve is, and his breaths are coming in short pants. He won't last long, probably, which means this is all that much closer to being over. Steve decides not to distract him, instead going back to counting the insects and water stains in his chosen empty corner. He's figuring out that dissociation thing Natasha has talked about. She's right - it _can_ be a blessing. When Rumlow finally comes with a groan and a loud stream of filthy praise, Steve feels nothing but vague annoyance. While Rumlow pulls out and shoves the thick trickles of moisture back inside him, Steve is counting the cinderblocks that make up the wall, wondering about their thickness and the possibility that they're reinforced, considering how much force it would take to break them and whether he could manage it without the shield. Even when Rumlow squirts fresh lube into him while murmuring "You'll thank me later," Steve can't manage anything more than an affronted sense of disgust.

In the end, it's not Rumlow who tears away Steve's nascent armor but Tony. When "Jackboot Number One" steps back and waves his hand, the other five set their rifles against the far wall and rush in - hounds sniffing for table scraps now that the boss dog has had his meal. Steve hasn't looked at Tony or Natasha since Rumlow first touched him, but the man's hand banging off the bars makes him turn. Steve's reminded of a chimpanzee he once saw at a roadside zoo in a very small cage - a whirlwind of intelligence turned to frustration and rage by the stress of confinement. "Hey!" Tony snaps, "Dicks for brains! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

Rumlow laughs, a supremely satisfied sound. He stalks over to where Tony's gripping the bars and looks him over - the traces of hair gel still stuck in his hair, the ugly network of scars on his chest, the dirt ground beneath his toenails. "Is that an offer, _Mr. Stark_?"

Tony seems to quail for a moment, then braces himself and Steve _really_ wishes he'd never taught him how to fall on grenades. "Sure, not like I've got anything better to do. One night only - just us deviants and no kink is too kinky." His eyes seem drawn, involuntarily, to Steve. There's an apology there. "Only, Spangly tight-asses need not apply."

Rumlow looks delighted. There's a spring in his step as he crosses back to Steve and pats him lightly on the cheek. "How about it, Cap? Your little teammate seems to think your ass needs a break. Should we take him up on it?"

 _Shit._ Steve needs to fix this, and he can't do that while holding onto that floating sense of apathy. He lets his shields drop enough that he can look Rumlow in the eye. "No."

"You sure? There's a lot of guys still waiting for a turn. Maybe he oughta take just one or two of them. Lighten the load, so to speak."

Steve swallows, not letting himself see anything but Rumlow's face. "No."

He comes a step closer, and the disparaging pat becomes a lewd caress, brushing over Steve's lips and jaw. Callused fingers still slippery with lube and more wrap themselves around the back of Steve's neck and tug his head down. "You don't sound very sure, Stevie-boy. You want to convince us?"

Steve sets his jaw, picks his head up, and glares at Rumlow. "You wanna get your rocks off, you fuck me. Only me."

Rumlow rubs a thumb across his cheekbone, leaving a smear of grease. "You heard the Captain, boys."

There's a moment of testosterone-fueled posturing before the thick-set agent that Steve vaguely recognizes takes up position behind him. Rumlow shoves the lube into his comrade's hand with a look of warning. The first thrust hurts - hurts worse than before, but Steve is already checking out. He hears Tony's howl of incoherent rage and the dull thump when Natasha kicks him, but the meaning rolls off of him like water off a duck. His body goes lax in the restraints - not moving except for the little rocks forward and backwards as the next guy pistons into him, and the next. He's mostly deaf to the lewd mockery they're spewing. It's better that way. It'll be over soon. Jumping on a grenade, when you come right down to it, is very, very simple.

Only one thing keeps him from checking out entirely, and that thing's name is Brock Rumlow. The senior agent stays close in front of Steve. The others' hands are hard, leaving bruises on his hips and flanks, but pain is easy to ignore. Their voices, too, are easily tuned out - mostly just an uninspiring soliloquy of _"tight ass, just dripping, begging for it . . ."_

Rumlow is something different. He keeps his touch light - soothing and almost friendly at times. He steadies Steve when thrusts throw him forward, taking the strain off his shoulders and helping him find his footing with his tethered feet. His voice is low. He's just saying _"easy, Rogers,"_ and _"relax, you're doing good,"_ providing just enough comfort to remind Steve that he _needs_ comfort. It's wreaking havoc on Steve's attempts to dissociate. Beneath a dull static, his emotions lurch from fear to rage to gut-wrenching vulnerability. He manages to hold back tears, but it's a near thing.

By the time the last man has finished, Steve is a wreak. There's semen trickling down his legs along with lube and at least a trace of blood. He's soaked in sweat, heaving for air, and breathing in the stink of sex and more sweat. He's given up on holding himself up and is just hanging from the chains, ignoring the numbness from fingers that have probably gone blue or black. 

Rumlow tucks himself against him and takes part of his weight. His arms slide from Steve's ribs to his shoulders and start to massage. Dimly, Steve realizes that Rumlow's fly is open again, and he's grinding against him. He flinches away, but the man merely slides closer. The fingers of one hand tangle in Steve's hair, dragging his head down to pillow on Rumlow's shoulder. His other hand glances down his side, over his hip, and in towards midline. Steve all but jumps out of his skin at the first touch of a hand on his cock. He's been so preoccupied with holding onto the nothingness of dissociation that he hasn't noticed himself going half-hard from repeated, accidental grazes to his prostate. Rumlow smiles against the side of his face. "Like that, huh Rogers?" His hips grind a little harder, bumping them together. "Like the feel of my cock? Wanna try sucking it?"

Steve is with it enough to know that this line of thinking needs to be shut down. "Wanna try life as a penis amputee?" he asks in the same tone.

Far from being horrified, Rumlow laughs softly. "Your loss." His fingers leave Steve's cock to squeeze and tug at his own. Less than thirty seconds later, he's coming and painting Steve's crotch with his seed. In the aftermath, he leans back, leaving Steve painfully hard, and leans in to nibble his earlobe. "I do like you, Rogers," he whispers, "You just need to be broken in a little."

He leans back, tucks himself away, and gestures to his men. They're suddenly all business. Rumlow pulls the phone out of his pocket again, turns until he's facing the same direction as Steve, and starts a video. "Alright, Barton," he growls, holding it out selfie-style, "Cut the crap. You know we're serious." 

Realization is dawning deep beneath the static buzz. Steve carefully turns his head away, looking anywhere but at the phone. He doesn't think it's angled low enough to show the state of him, but . . . But.

Rumlow walks around him, and Steve feels the camera's eye like a lingering burn. "Cap's seen better days, but he's mostly unhurt," Rumlow is telling the camera - telling _Clint_ through the camera, "The rest of your merry men are fine. For now. So, give us what we need and nobody else has to have a bad day."

There's a soft click as he turns the camera off. Rumlow steps back around him, tangles his fingers in Steve's hair, and kisses him deep before he has the wherewithal to resist. "I told you," he purrs once he breaks the kiss, "Business and pleasure."

He turns on heel and sweeps out the door, leaving them alone.

Steve takes a few moments just to breathe. He's earned that, goddamnit. He focuses on the pain from his torn wrists until the buzz of unwanted arousal is fully gone. Only when he's as together as he can get himself does he turn to assess the state of his team. Bruce is still lying right where they left him, his chest rising and falling roughly once a minute. Natasha is curled up next to him with her arms around her knees. She meets his gaze readily when he looks at her, and while there's sorrow in her face, there's no horror or pity. She's seen worse. The thought is strangely comforting.

Tony . . . Tony is more of a wreck than Steve. He's walked to the far side of the cell, with as much space between him and Steve as he can get. His arms are folded, his gaze directed unwaveringly at a tiny grate in the floor, his body strung tight like a bow.

 _Shit._ Steve closes his eyes. He waits until he can make his voice completely steady before he speaks.

"Tony."

The man twitches like he's been shocked, but does not turn.

Steve swallows to lubricate his throat and searches for the voice an _officer_ uses. "Tony, I need . . ." He trails off. He'd meant to finish that with _"you to look at me,"_ but he's not cruel enough for that. He can't bring himself to tear down the defenses Tony's erected to remind himself that this is something that's happening to _someone else_ and not himself. "I need you to listen to me," he finishes.

Tony takes a breath, quick and sharp. "Yeah?"

Steve reminds himself that he's not the only one having _a bad day_ , as Rumlow had put it. This was done to terrify and traumatize his team just as much as him. He makes his voice very gentle and very firm. "Tony. We're gonna get out of this. We'll find an opening or someone will come looking for us. It doesn't matter. What matters is, _everyone on the team_ will need to be ready to move when that moment comes. Or, maybe none of us get out." He takes another breath and sets out to break Tony as mercifully as possible. "We need combat readiness. And you . . . I heal faster than you, Tony. I can take more. If they need to make one of us their whipping boy until we have our chance, then it _needs_ to be me. For the good of the team. You understand?"

Tony's breath hisses out of him, but his voice, like Steve's, is strangely detached. "Yeah. Yeah, Spangles, I hear you."

"Good." Steve swallows again, acutely aware of the oppressive heat and his parched throat. "Try to calm down. You're sweating. You'll lose too much water that way."

"Yeah," Tony says bitterly, "Sure."

He says no more, and neither does Steve.


	2. Services Rendered

The light fades slowly. While it does, Steve forces himself to keep his weight on his feet and hold his arms up as high as possible to take the weight off his abraded wrists. He can move, run, even fight with sore muscles, which is good because his shoulders are on fire. But, when their moment comes and they escape into the jungle, he won't have energy to spare for fighting off infection. Skin wounds have to be avoided as much as possible.

As the evening wears on, his head begins to spin from the heat and the dehydration. He staggers a few times, despite himself. It's the rain forest in summer - humidity is around 100% with temperatures in the high eighties, even in the shade. This cell seems to be partially underground, but not far enough to shield them from the heat.

If it's affecting him this bad, he worries what it's doing to his team. Natasha is doing everything right - sitting calmly with all her clothes on and taking slow, deep breaths to avoid water loss. At her behest, Tony has taken Bruce's shirt - the latter having a lower temperature thanks to sedation that shows no sign of wearing off. They've been mostly silent for hours. Once Steve was able to handle it, he'd struck up a quiet, strategic conversation with Nat, reviewing everything Rumlow had said. He'd repeated what she hadn't heard and she'd recounted what he couldn't remember. It ended up being forty-five minutes of what amounted to rubbing brine in Steve's wounds, and all they got out of it was that Rumlow - or his mysterious boss - was trying to use alien tech for some kind of mind-wiping weapon. Nat was still sure that this meant the scepter was involved. Steve pointed out that for whatever it was to be a _weapon,_ it would either have to be targeted or have an area of effect - a gun or a bomb. Unfortunately, there are almost infinite ways to use either a gun or a bomb, as Tony glumly informed them.

As daylight fades, the temperature starts to drop fast. Steve suppresses a shiver. His system runs hotter thanks to his enhanced metabolism - it'll take more than one night naked in a concrete cell for him to run into trouble. Still, he's worried about the others, especially when no food or water arrives. There's some kind of spigot and hose just outside his cell. If he were free of the shackles it would be almost in arms' reach. Unfortunately, he's not and it's more than twenty feet away from the nearest edge of the other cell.

There's a low clang and Steve all but jumps out of his skin. The door is swinging open again, and that's almost certainly a bad thing, but at least it's _something._ His vague hope for a rescue party dies a premature death when Rumlow steps in, looking smug. There are only three other thugs with him this time. "Hey, kids. Enjoying the accommodations?" 

"Fuck you," Natasha says almost lazily.

"Is that an offer?"

She smiles toothily. "In the ass. With an M16. And then pull the trigger."

"Aw, girls just say the sweetest things."

Steve is worried he'll have to intervene again, but Rumlow waves two of his guys into Steve's cell. "Get him down. Wouldn't want to get gangrene all over that gun show of his." He must sense Steve tensing in anticipation and sudden hope, because he turns to the last goon. "If he tries anything, shoot the foul-mouthed bitch."

It takes all Steve's got to stifle a scream when they lower his arms, still cuffed, and blood rushes back into fingers that are purple and cold. He hadn't been close to gangrene, but it hadn't seemed like that unlikely of a possibility either. He was so preoccupied with the red-hot needling pain - and with the automatic weapon leveled at Nat's chest - that he hardly noticed them releasing his leg irons from the floor and linking them together with an eighteen inch chain. Rumlow waves them over to the far corner of the cell. He's already picking up the hose and reaching for the spigot. "Let's get him cleaned up. Pretty boy's more valuable that way."

Steve stumbles but manages not to fall as the cold spray of the hose hits him. He positions his hands under the worst of the spray, trying to clean out the still-seeping wounds as best he can. He heals quickly - the bruises from earlier have already faded to green - but he's worn all the way through the skin in a few places.

They turn him and laugh when he gasps and jerks at the cold water on his sore ass. It takes a minute to adjust, but once he does it actually helps. The raw nerve endings aren't so much soothed as iced into numbness. He shifts his feet in disgust and tries not to watch the dirty rivulets trickling down his legs.

"Like that, Cap?"

He's turned again, and now Rumlow's taking sadistic pleasure in pelleting his groin with the icy stream. "Not such a big guy now, are ya?" Water tracks up his chest to hit him full in the face, and Steve opens his mouth to catch some on his dry tongue.

"Yeah, you like that."

He's dripping now, every inch soaked, and the shivering is just starting up. At some unseen signal from Rumlow, the men gripping his elbows suddenly kick his legs out and shove him to his knees. Rumlow approaches, still holding the hose, though he's released the sprayer. "You want some more, buddy?" He presses the narrow tip of the nozzle against Steve's lips and Steve sets his jaw to keep it from going any further. One squeeze of his hand, and Rumlow could drown him on dry land. Rumlow's other hand slicks through his wet hair in a mockery of concern. "You need something to drink, big fella?"

Steve stares fixedly at a blank patch of wall. He is _not_ going to beg.

"Yeah, I bet you do. Bet you're hungry, too. What was the last thing you ate, a pre-mission Snickers bar?"

Not for the first time that day, Steve's body betrays him. His stomach lets out a low rumble. Rumlow chuckles softly and cups his cheek. "Could help you out, you know. Not for free, of course. You'd have to earn it." His thumb rubs along Steve's lower lip, and only the muzzle pointed at Nat keeps him from biting it. He shakes his head, his face mulish.

"You sure? What about your precious team, then? I'll bet Rich Boy's missing his cheeseburgers."

Steve stares straight ahead, but his stomach is lurching, and not just from hunger. _Combat readiness,_ he'd told Tony. They're in rough shape, at the moment, with no food or water in twenty-four hours. They can go on a little longer like this, but any kind of a struggle is going to take more than they've got to give. Rumlow leans close and whispers, "It's always going to cost. And, it's never going to be cheaper than it is right now." He pauses, then catches Steve's lower lip with his thumb. "I've got no need to hurt you, Rogers. But, this is how it is."

Damn it. Damn _everything._ Steve draws one breath, quick and sharp, his nostrils flaring. "Okay," he says with no emotion at all.

He's close enough that he can see Rumlow start to harden. Tony makes a hoarse noise. "Steve-"

"Quiet." He says it louder, but in that same flat tone. Rumlow grins with the teeth of a shark. He reaches for Steve's hair, but Steve twitches away. "Payment is due prior to services rendered." He lets his voice trend towards snide because he has to get his satisfaction from somewhere. Rumlow seems amused - he even seems _pleased._ He gives the others a curt nod and one fumbles in a backpack, pulling out three large bottles of water and fistfuls of energy bars.

"Banner too."

Bruce can't be roused, but Rumlow's apparently prepared for this eventuality. While one guard backs Nat and Tony into a corner at gunpoint, another pushes a feeding tube down the unconscious doctor's nose and connects it to a bag of some milky fluid. While that drips in, they distribute the water and the protein bars - two each for Natasha and Tony and _four_ tossed to the damp concrete by Steve's knee. Steve stares at them, feeling a pang despite the numbness he's struggling to regain. Rumlow knows about his amped-up metabolism. How many times has he watched Steve chug protein shakes before a mission or sat across from him in the mess hall cracking jokes while Steve tucks into a triple portion?

"And Clint," he says, trying to put a hint of command into his voice.

"Barton's not in the mood to eat right now." Steve lifts his head to glare at him, but Rumlow laughs and slicks back his hair. "Don't worry about it. He's taken care of. For the next couple days, the little shit's more valuable than the rest of you put together."

The bag hanging over Bruce's head is empty. They pull the NG tube and back out of the cell. Rumlow's hand curls around Steve's skull to tug on the short hairs at the back of his head. "Couple ground rules, now. Don't want you getting seller's remorse." He pushes down on Steve's jaw, and this time Steve lets him pull his mouth open just a little. "Behave yourself and you get all this good shit for the low low price of sucking me off. Fight me - or _bore_ me - and everybody gets a turn." His thumb skims lightly over Steve's lower incisors. "Get nasty with your teeth and Stark there gets to learn all about life without a dick. You understand me?" Steve nods shortly and Rumlow tugs on his hair. "I need to hear you say it, Cap."

"I understand," he says in a terse monotone.

"And?"

"I'll behave. Just get it over with."

Rumlow laughs and pulls his head back for a better angle. "You're not giving the orders anymore, Captain." He unzips anyway, quick and without ceremony, and steps a little closer. There's nothing to see but his black-clad hips and the hard line of his stomach, so Steve closes his eyes, pulling a pleased little sound out of Rumlow before he even touches him. He lets his jaw go lax and manages not to flinch when he feels the head of a cock bumping at his lips. Rumlow pulls him in, dragging Steve's head just a few inches onto himself to start. "That's it. Get it nice and wet."

Steve hasn't had anything to drink besides what little he stole from the hose, but nausea is enough to bring moisture to his mouth. He buckles down on his stomach, refusing to let it do anything more - anything that might qualify as _not behaving._ The head of Rumlow's cock sits thick and heavy on his tongue, a taste he can't escape. He hasn't done this since the forties and wasn't doing it often then. Steve decides right from the start that Rumlow doesn't need to know about the one or two tricks he picked up in the bathhouses before all the eligible men went off to war. He lets his mouth hang slack - just a warm hole.

"Wrap your lips around it," Rumlow orders. Steve obeys, keeping them loose. He's doing the bare minimum, but just the absence of a fight seems like enough to please Rumlow. The man thrusts in and out shallowly for a few minutes, grunting with pleasure. "Going a little deeper now," he warns, and isn't that fucking courteous of him?

The man's cock is now bumping against the back of Steve's throat with each thrust and Rumlow has both hands in Steve's drying hair, holding him still. He doesn't seem satisfied. The thrusts keep coming harder, until it's all Steve can do not to retch. In desperation, he lifts his hand, thinking that a hand job at the base might be enough to make Rumlow let up, but the man slaps his wrist away. "Just that smart mouth of yours, Rogers . . . take it . . . take it all . . . I'm gonna ram it down your fucking throat . . ."

For the first time since striking this deal with the devil, Steve tenses. His hands clench into fists and he has to resist the urge to bite down. What Rumlow's asking (no, _demanding_ ) just isn't gonna happen. He'd tried all those decades ago. With all the libido and enthusiasm of a twenty-one year old getting some, he'd tried to swallow those anonymous pricks in the bathhouses. All he'd managed was a few of the most humiliating experiences of a humiliation-prone life. If deep-throating is Rumlow's standard for good behavior, then Steve is about to get passed around again. He'd better make his peace with that if he wants Tony to get through this . . . unscathed.

Rumlow's hips are hitching into him. "Let me in," he growls, "Swallow against me. Do it, Rogers."

Steve doesn't. It's funny, the little lines in the sand that pride demands he draw.

After a few fruitless minutes, Rumlow growls with frustration. Steve half-expects to be passed off to the next slavering guard, but Rumlow just huffs. "Let's take a break." He pulls out and cups one hand under Steve's jaw. "Look at me." Steve does and finds his face surprisingly neutral. There's even a bit of a smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Never had a cock down your throat before?" he asks, his voice too low for Nat and Tony to overhear - Steve hopes.

He shakes his head, not bothering to glare. It'd just be a wasted effort, anyway.

Rumlow's eyes crinkle and he slides a hand through Steve's hair in a way that might be intended as comforting. "Yeah, big shock. Too much of a clean-cut poster boy, I bet. Bet yesterday you'd never had one up your ass either."

Now Steve _does_ glare and notices to his dismay that Rumlow gets a little harder from it. The man's fingers are still threading through his hair and Steve reminds himself that he had to do this. They needed the food - needed it so that the three of them can be strong enough to burn this place to the ground when they get the opportunity. That's what this is about - he's playing Rumlow and Rumlow's letting him. He's getting off easy, too - Rumlow hasn't even hurt him. He's fine. It'll be fine.

Rumlow's next words cut off his half-hysterical rationalizations. "This is happening now. Two ways it can go - you can learn to take me or you can asphyxiate yourself on my cock. But, I'm not stopping until it's one or the other."

Some of the fear must leak onto his face, despite his best efforts. Rumlow's hand drops a little lower and rubs a soft circle just below the base of his neck. "Settle down. I'll talk you through it, Rogers. Steve. Just open up for me." 

There's nothing to do but obey.

Rumlow slides in, slow but firm. "The trick," he says softly, "Is to swallow around it right before your gag reflex kicks in. That way, you guide my cock into your throat rather than down your windpipe. Just gotta get the timing right."

He may as well try it. The last blowjob he gave was pre-serum, and plenty's changed since then. If he can pull this off - and Rumlow holds up his end of the bargain - this might all be over that much sooner. As Rumlow pushes in with a series of slow thrusts, Steve tries tentatively swallowing against it. Rumlow groans at the sensation, but all it's doing is bruising Steve's throat. It's too big . . . 

With one hand, Rumlow tilts his head just so. With the other, he massages his throat. "Relax . . . almost there . . ."

And then, somehow, it's in and sliding deeper. Steve's throat spasms and belatedly tries to repel it, but Rumlow is pulling him forward and groaning as if it's the best fucking thing he's ever felt. Steve's eyes are watering but he hardly notices past the fire in his throat. It's too much. He can't breathe. Rumlow's hands form a cage around his head and Steve knows he could break that hold, but then he'd just start over or worse. Steve doesn't want to drag this out, but he also doesn't want to die like this, choking on a dick in front of his team, and _God_ he can't _breathe._

"Calm down," Rumlow's saying, "Breathe through your nose. _Relax_."

He's come this far. He might as well try it. His chest heaves once, and miraculously he is able to breathe, just a little. It comes in a wheeze that feels like a bad asthma attack, but it's better than nothing. Steve does it again, then again. It gives him something essential to focus on as Rumlow starts to move, rutting deeper and deeper into him until Steve's nose is almost pressed against his pubic hair. Steve focuses on the little hissing breaths that mean he's still alive and does his level best to ignore Rumlow's voice, which has gone deep and gravelly. "Yeah . . . fuck yeah, made for this . . ."

The thrusts are coming faster, and it hurts like hell, but that must mean it'll be done soon. Please God. Steve closes his eyes because that's the one sense he _can_ control, even if all he can hear, feel, smell, and taste is Brock Rumlow. The man's groans are getting incoherent. He pulls halfway out and it's all Steve can do to keep his stomach contents where they belong and then _finally_ there's the salty flood of semen on his tongue.

Steve swallows without being told because he's at the finish line and there is _no fucking way_ he's giving that up now. Rumlow is panting and laughing, his face blissed out. He strokes gently over the side of Steve's face and Steve makes a mental note to talk to Nat about that and maybe work out what he can do to turn that to their advantage. He ought to get something out of this besides a shitty protein bar.

"You did good, big guy. Who'da thought Captain America would be such a natural cocksucker?"

Steve just sinks down into his heels, panting for breath and waiting to see if Rumlow will keep his word.

The man steps away for a moment only to return with a scratchy, Army-surplus blanket. Steve manages not to shudder as Rumlow drapes it over his still-damp shoulders. "Here you go, Cap. You've earned it." All he can do is stare fixedly at the concrete while Rumlow leans close and lowers his voice to a purr. "Get some rest, big guy. Big day tomorrow."

Only when the door is clanging shut again behind the last of the thugs does Steve allow himself to breathe again. He tugs the blanket off his shoulders and slowly gets to his feet. A blanket. A bottle of water. Four energy bars. Lousy payment, but just the fact that it's payment at all hurts. He gathers up the bounty, all the same, and pauses to collect the torn pieces of his shirt as well.

Across the room, Natasha is watching him while chewing on her own protein bar. Tony's face is red and set. His food sits in front of him, untouched, and he's glaring at it as if it's personally offended him. Steve twists off the cap of his water bottle, takes a long pull, swirls it in his mouth, and spits. The second mouthful he swallows, though the lukewarm water does little to soothe the burn in his throat.

"Any chance to throw yourself on the razor wire, huh, Cap?"

Steve's jaw tenses at the bitterness in Tony's voice. He walks up to the bars, getting as close as he can. "We needed the supplies. Rumlow wanted _that_ and he would've found a way to get it. This way, at least we got something we needed out of it."

Tony looks up at him and Steve is taken aback by the despair in his face. "It's just water."

"It's just water until you don't have it. Then, it's everything."

He opens his mouth to argue, but Nat says "Tony," in an uncharacteristically gentle tone and he lets it drop.

Steve sighs and turns to Natasha. He holds the blanket through the bars. It's only a little damp. There's barely enough light to navigate the bare cells. Soon, it will be fully dark. "You should have this. Use it to keep the three of you warm. Especially Bruce."

She stands and steps close enough to touch him, but doesn't. "Steve, you've gotta be kidding me!" Her critical gaze takes in the icy water dripping from his hair, the wounds at his wrists and ankles, his lack of a single thing to wear.

"Last night it got into the forties," he reminds her, "If this is any kind of normal sedation cocktail, then Bruce can't regulate his body temperature. He could die."

"We can keep him warm. Body heat."

Steve grinds his teeth in frustration. He reaches for something closer to the truth. "Nat . . . he gave me this as a _favor._ Because I was _good for him._ Just touching it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It doesn't do me any good, but it could save Bruce's life."

She reluctantly takes the fabric. Making a decision, she tossed it to Tony. "Get under this with Bruce. Keep him warm."

"Great, great," he snaps, "I'm surrounded by sacrificial stoic types. When you both get yourselves nobly killed, do I get all your stuff? And what will _you_ be doing, Cap Junior, while I'm hiding under the covers with our comatose best hope?"

"I'll be with Steve," she answers evenly, "Sharing body heat back-to-back across the bars." He opens his mouth to argue further but she cuts him off. "Tony. It's the only way this works."

He subsides unhappily, gathers up his share of the supplies, and goes to lie down next to Bruce. Before he pulls the blanket over them both, he gives Steve and Natasha a glare. "If this is going to _work_ , then the two of you need to stop treating me like your incompetent step-son. I may not do this every week, but it isn't my first rodeo either. You don't have to look after me like I'm some kind of _civilian._ "

"Never crossed my mind," Steve lies. He has a feeling he'll be doing that a lot soon.


	3. Open to Interpretation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains references to past non-con involving a prepubescent child. It's brief and non-graphic but definitely has the potential to be disturbing. You've been warned.

When morning comes after a mostly-sleepless night, Natasha takes some comfort in the certainty that today's the day they'll come for her instead. Steve still thinks he can bear all of this on his own, with no one else suffering beyond having to watch. She'd humored him during the long, chilly night, first by speculating about what Rumlow's boss might be up to, then by strategizing as to how Steve could flip him if it came to that. That's a game that's new to Steve and almost certainly too fraught with complications for him to play it well, but thinking about how to use Rumlow's attentions against him gives Steve some sense of control over what's happened to him. He needs that. She's pretty sure this was his first time being raped.

Caught up in the emotion of what's happened, Steve's lost sight of the fact that he's not even the central player in this little drama - Clint is. Natasha doesn't know what they're doing to him and struggles not to wonder, but she knows he'll follow SHIELD protocol. No cooperation, no negotiation, no compromise when it comes to hostages.

These shitheads (Natasha refuses to believe they're actually SHIELD) will have no choice but to escalate. That means working their way through the team until no one is left untouched. Steve was first because he's the strongest of them and in command. She'll be second because Clint knows she can handle herself. Tony will be next, and if they think they can get away with it, they might just abuse Bruce's all-but-lifeless body too.

Natasha has no intention of letting them get away with it, but there hasn't been an opening yet. They need more time for the baddies to screw up or for help to come, and if their enemies are stalled while heaping abuse on the person most experienced in taking it, so much the better.

She knows it's going to hurt, though.

For what it was, they'd gone relatively easy on Steve. He'd barely bled, and that takes skill to pull off if your target ( _victim_ , she reminds herself, _they're called victims_ ) is scared and inexperienced. They'd been holding back because that was just the opening salvo and maybe also because Rumlow has long been a little bit obsessed with Steve.

It won't be like that with her. Everyone at SHIELD knows about the Red Room, or at least the general outline. They know that she's been doing honeypot missions and reverse interrogations since she was still too young to need birth control. To get to her - to get to _Clint_ through her - they'll have to step up their game, and Natasha just hopes that Steve and Tony can handle that without completely falling apart.

Steve managed to get a couple hours of peaceful sleep, sitting up with his back pressed against hers. It's a mark of how exhausted he was. As red-gold light filters through the window, though, he's stirring, sweating, and mumbling to himself. She puts a hand on his shoulder and gently shakes him awake. He'd kill her if she let him have a trauma-induced nightmare in front of Tony.

He goes very still at her touch, then relaxes slowly and intentionally. "Hey," she says quietly, "How you feeling?"

He stretches a little, testing his muscles, probably testing his soreness. "Fine," he says softly, "Fast healing."

He still has an energy bar left and a few sips of water. "You'd better finish that," she tells him, "If they think we're hoarding food for an escape attempt, there'll be hell to pay."

With mechanical obedience, he peels back the wrapper and takes a bite. He neither savors the poor meal nor bolts it down, just chews and swallows with no evidence of enjoyment. Natasha had considered saving half of her food - maybe unwrapping the bar, tucking it in her pocket, and giving back the wrapper to throw them off. In the end, though, she decided against it. They didn't have anywhere to put it, besides pockets, and after today, there's a good chance that the little compartments of her combat suit won't be functional or accessible.

Tony is awake - he might never have slept - and reports that Bruce is unchanged. For lack of anything better to do, they talk back and forth, rehashing the same information and kicking around the same fruitless ideas. It doesn't go anywhere. Escape routes don't appear just because you want them enough.

In the hopes that the sedation might be wearing off, Tony slaps Bruce several times, hard. When that fails to get so much as an increased heart rate, he punches him once in the stomach. Natasha, who's more practiced at that sort of thing, simply reaches over and breaks his smallest finger. "Not even a flinch," she reports with a sigh as she tears a bit of fabric from the hem of his pants to tie the finger to its neighbor. If ( _when_ ) he hulks out, it'll be healed instantly. Steve just nods and bangs the back of his head against the bars once . . . twice. He's already tried bending back the iron and it hasn't given one inch.

They're quiet after that. Lacking a bucket, Natasha relieves herself into an empty water bottle. Just in case they do come for him again, she nudges Steve to do the same. She can't protect him from every humiliation, but there are a few she can predict and avert. Mostly, she prepares by sinking into herself and controlling her breathing. Her mind runs over a few trigger words driven into her during her training that never fail to make her dissociate. She practices her rusty skills, working on detaching her emotions while keeping her mind in motion. In such a state, she brings herself to stare into Steve's cell at the dried mess under the swinging chain while remembering the face, voice, and physical attributes of each of the men who'd raped him, all without feeling a twinge.

She's letting down her shields and stretching out her chained legs when it happens. She's about to turn to Steve and make some pointless _when we get out of here_ type of comment, just to keep him with them. The point is, she's not dissociated when the door swings open and Rumlow re-enters with a sharp-edged smirk.

There's only one man coming after him. Arrogance on their part, she thinks, and it might be the opening they need. They probably think two men is all they'll need to subdue little Natalia Romanovna, especially since she's already bound hand-and-foot. It's a mistake others have made before, and it makes her blood quicken.

It's a minute before she can make out anything about the second man, besides the hulking size of him. He's dressed in black - not a tactical vest or armor but just a jacket and pants - and he's carrying something large and army-green over his shoulder. A cot. It's an Army cot. How thoughtful.

She's about to roll to her feet and soften them up with a quip when the second man shifts and she gets a better look at his face. Or doesn't. He's wearing a black polymer mask covering him from just below his eyes to his lower jaw.

Her blood goes cold and she really wishes she'd dissociated. There must be more than one of those masks in the world. It's probably a coincidence . . . He moves to lean the cot against the wall and she sees the dull flash of metal that is his left hand. The arm is covered by the jacket, but she knows what it looks like. She should be standing, should be smirking and wisecracking to show them she's not scared, but all she can feel is cold and the hot stab of pain from where her left ovary used to be before a Soviet slug ripped through it. She's vaguely aware of Rumlow mocking Steve ( _"Give us a kiss?"_ ) and of Steve's stony silence.

And then, miraculously, she's spared. The masked man has pulled out a ring of keys and is opening a cell door, but it isn't hers.

It isn't hers.

Nausea lurches in on the coattails of relief. All she can think about is that time when she was eleven and Inessa wasted her last bullet and was put down right in front of her. Inessa, who'd slept in the bed next to hers since they were six, and all she could think was _not me . . ._

This is why she doesn't belong in the Avengers - not really. Because a real hero would never in a million years feel _relief_ at the fact that the Winter Soldier is about to torture Steve Rogers.

But not her.

She may not be a hero, but she's a professional. None of her terror or self-loathing has shown on her face. Armed with the knowledge that there is likely fuck-all she can do about whatever's going to happen, she muscles her brain back into reconnaissance mode. 

The Soldier is setting the cot down just inside Steve's cell and Rumlow is following him in. Steve is on his feet, setting himself, probably weighing the odds of him taking down two trained agents with shackles on both his hands and his feet. He doesn't know about the enhancements. If he did, he wouldn't bother. Or . . . yes, he would. It's always Steve's style to try, even against overwhelming odds.

For her part, Natasha doesn't get up. Instead, she makes herself watch, listen, and remember.

"Your buddy's been useful," Rumlow is telling Steve, and Natasha's heart lurches at the past tense, "But, he's still not quite . . . sufficiently motivated." Her heart rate slows.

"What do you want, Rumlow?" Steve asks tersely, as if it isn't obvious.

"Not a question of _wanting,_ Cap. Just paying what's owed."

"Uh huh." Steve's voice is dry. He glances down and then back up, and now there's a beseeching tone buried deep down in his voice. "Not here."

Rumlow snorts. "Where would you prefer, Rogers? The hanger? Communications? Barton's cell? You're a decent enough fuck, but it doesn't earn you an expense-paid tour of our happy home."

Natasha quietly files away that this facility likely has a hanger, a communications center, and at least one other cell block.

Rumlow slaps the Soldier on his right arm and it must be some kind of signal because he's shedding the jacket, exposing only a white tank underneath and the metal arm melding into his shoulder. It's even more extensive than Natasha thought it would be. The steel socket seems to be grafted onto his ribcage, maybe even anchored in his spine. Steve's breaths are coming faster but still steady. Nat half expects him to paw the ground like a bull about to charge. "Rogers, I don't think you've had a chance to meet my compadre here? He's not much of a talker, but real good at following orders. We call him 'the Asset,' though he's had other names." He turns to the Soldier. "Take him down. Rough, but don't break anything."

Steve shifts his feet and sets himself as best he can, given the reach of the chains. He's staying close to the bars - close to Natasha. She sees his move before he goes for it. But, she's seen the Winter Soldier's combat reflexes, and she knows it won't work. "Steve," she says softly and urgently, "Don't." He ignores her, of course.

The Soldier takes two long strides towards him, but before he's in range, Steve is grabbing the bars and heaving himself up with his chained hands. In a feat of gymnastics that should be impossible for such a large man, he throws his body up to a ninety-degree angle and uses the bars as a pivot point to spin. He launches himself at the Soldier - literally throws his body at him with his feet pointed like a lance. A normal person would have been helpless to stop that much momentum, even if they'd seen the lightning-fast attack coming.

The Soldier merely twists and deflects his flying body with one hard blow from the metal arm.

Steve hits the ground hard, rolls, and comes back up, but the Soldier is on him before he can get his feet fully under him. He hits him hard in the gut with his flesh-and-blood hand and grabs a fistful of short blond hair with the other hand. Steve spins into it, breaking the hold and driving an elbow into the smaller man's solar plexus. The Soldier's breath leaves him with a soft _oof_ and Steve tries to twist and throw him over his hip, but the Soldier just flips and lands solidly on the balls of his feet.

Steve must realize, by now, that he's enhanced - more than just the arm. Natasha guesses that these two would be pretty evenly matched in a fair fight, but this, of course, is far from fair. Steve tries again - coming up with both fists in an uppercut - but the Soldier (the _Asset_?) rotates out of the way, sweeps his feet, and slams Steve to the concrete, face first. Steve lets out an involuntary sound of pain, and Natasha wonders whether the Soldier has managed to obey the _nothing broken_ order. He might be thinking along the same lines. He squats and plants a knee in Steve's back and then reaches around him for his arms. 

Natasha recognizes the thick glint of metal as magnetic cuffs - SHIELD experimental prototype. More versatile than traditional shackles, and nearly impossible to break the hold once engaged and locked against ferrous metal or another cuff. Steve is twisting and flailing, but the Soldier manages to get a cuff on each wrist. Releasing the previous shackles - which were just reinforced handcuffs - he draws both hands behind Steve's back and pins them. He stabs at a button with his left hand (Natasha notes that his prosthetic doesn't seem to be ferromagnetic) and the cuffs engage with a hum.

For a moment, all is silent except for Steve's ragged panting. Rumlow squats in front of him and lifts his head by the hair. "Nothing personal, big guy." Steve's nose is bleeding, but Natasha sees his face tighten with rage. Rumlow pulls out his phone and snaps a few pictures, first of Steve's face, then the expanse of his back with the Winter Soldier pinning him. He steps away and tosses the asset a bottle of lube. "Take him. Make it hurt, but no permanent damage. Bruises are okay."

The Soldier nods robotically. In one smooth motion, he hauls Steve up by his bound wrists and tosses him face-first onto the cot. Steve's jaw glances off the aluminum frame, leaving a deep dent and a rising bruise. He twists and tries to rise, but the Soldier is all over him, folding him in half and forcing his chest down. The asset pauses and fumbles with the lube. Steve struggles and writhes until the asset stills him with a cuff to the head that snaps Steve's head around. He's disoriented for just long enough for the Soldier to finish spreading lube on his hand - on his _left_ hand.

Natasha steals a glance at Tony and is relieved to find that he's looking away. His face is white, but he's silent, just as he was silent through most of yesterday's ordeal. It falls to Natasha, again, to keep a mental record of every atrocity committed.

Without further ceremony, the Winter Soldier drives two metal fingers into Steve's ass, drawing a long, involuntary keen. It's hard for Natasha to relate to the pain Steve is going through. She had to master her own body at such a young age that the ordinary sting of a hole being stretched and lubed feels as distant as the memory of new teeth erupting. Still, she remembers that objects were worse than fingers and _metal_ made for the worst kinds of objects. She winces a little. Then, she forces the childhood memories away, because this isn't some kind of sexual-trauma Olympics, god damn it. She disengages, for the moment, from the psychological and focuses on a set of hastily-determined mission parameters.

_Combat readiness._ Steve is still gasping and writhing from pain, but the Soldier is taking his time, twisting the fingers and rocking slowly. It has to feel like hell, but it's unlikely to tear anything. Moreover, the Soldier - the _Asset_ \- has orders: no permanent damage. They wouldn't let an operative this enhanced off his leash unless they were damn sure he would follow orders. So, Steve will be terrorized, wrecked, ripped open and metaphorically left to bleed, but he won't be _damaged._ Psychological trauma is a lot easier to deal with on the run than an abscessed perineum.

_Threat assessment._ Unless they can disable him or otherwise take him out of commission, the Asset's presence makes escape pretty close to impossible. Tony could take him out with his suit, but the suit is probably scattered in a hundred crushed-up pieces by now. The Hulk could flick him halfway to Kenya with his pinky, but the Hulk is missing in action until they find a way to revive Bruce. Healthy and unrestrained, Steve is damn close to a match for him, but that only helps them if Natasha and Tony are willing to run and leave Steve to sacrifice himself covering their escape. Which is exactly the kind of thing he would do, the selfless asshole. Frustrated with strategizing for the impossible, she turns her gaze to Rumlow. He's watching the Soldier twist and spread and add another finger with a terrible kind of eagerness. He's got it bad for Steve, and in a less-wrong man, that might be something they could exploit. It's Rumlow, though, and if Steve gets it together enough to try a honeypot flip, he's only going to end up hurt. _More_ hurt.

_Material resources._ Her clothes stripped of all weapons and trackers, Tony's underwear, and three empty plastic bottles. Next.

_Time table._ Whatever they're doing with Clint, they expect to be done in a couple of days. The scheduled check-in with JARVIS is six days away. Without intervention, there's no way she can make that work.

_Strategy._ She's not religious, but _prayer_ is starting to look as good as any other.

She's pulled out of her musings by Steve's low grunt and hiss as the Soldier's hand withdraws. He's not struggling anymore. The Soldier grips him at the hips, hard enough to make the skin blanch, and fucks into him, slow and steady. He pauses a moment, as if to let Steve get used to it, and Rumlow clears his throat.

The Soldier starts thrusting, quick and hard. The only sound is the little breaths punched out of his victim. Steve's face is pressed into the cot and the Soldier's flesh hand shifts from his hip to grip both wrists at the small of his back. Rumlow is openly palming his cock through his closed fly. He growls something too low for Natasha to hear, and it makes Steve start fighting again. The Winter Soldier hisses and leans forward to pin him with his weight, but Steve's been waiting for that and throws his head back hard. It knocks the black mask off, but the Soldier is otherwise unharmed. "Pin him," Rumlow snaps at his asset, "Don't you fucking let him up." The metal hand plants itself in the back of Steve's skull and shoves down so hard that Natasha really hopes he can breathe through the canvas of the cot. The Soldier's thrusts are picking up speed. This will be quick, at least, though she's sure Rumlow has something nasty planned for after.

It's obvious when the Winter Soldier comes. He doesn't let out a sound, but his whole body goes rigid and his hand tightens on Steve's wrists until the bones creak. In the aftermath, he pulls out but keeps Steve's face firmly planted in the fabric. His face beneath the mask is just as blank and unreadable as she expected. He lifts his eyes to Rumlow, waiting for instruction.

The agent considers for long moments. He pulls out his phone and gives the video camera a big grin. "As requested, Barton." He pans over Steve, then the rest of them. "Pleasure doing business with you. Remember we keep our promises."

He puts the phone away. "Let him up," he says at last.

The Soldier's arm retreats and he stands, staying close enough that he can grab Steve if he makes a move. For long moments, Steve lies still, and Natasha has to remind herself that anybody can be broken. Anybody.

He sits up before she can start to despair. There are tear tracks on his face, but the look he shoots Rumlow is pure venom. He twists, about to stand, and looks up at the Winter Soldier and . . . freezes.  
"Bucky?"

A hoarse, broken whisper. Tony starts and what little blood remains drains from his face as he spins to look. The asset isn't that remarkable-looking without the mask. Just brown hair, blue eyes, nondescript features. He's staring at Steve with an unreadable expression, still silent.

Steve stands and takes a step toward him, his whole posture open and exposed - non-combative in the face of an enhanced assassin who's just raped him. "Bucky, you know me. It's Steve. We've known each other forever."

"Is it true?" Natasha breathes in Tony's direction.

He shakes his head, but it's less a denial than an expression of disbelief. "I've seen the old newsreels often enough. That's Barnes."

"You're James Buchanan Barnes," Steve is saying louder, "Sergeant of the Howling Commandos. Formerly of the 107th Infantry. From Brooklyn! Buck! Tell me you remember!" He's yelling and crowding the Soldier's space until Nat wants to scream out a warning, but he doesn't make any offensive move, so the Soldier - _Bucky Barnes_ \- just stands there and watches him.

Rumlow laughs and Steve rounds on him. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Me?" Rumlow spreads his hands in a gesture of innocence, "I was a twinkle in my father's father's eye in 1945. I didn't do a damn thing."

Steve lunges at him, only to be stopped by a metal forearm latching around his throat. "What the _hell_ did you bastards do?! Why doesn't he remember me?"

Rumlow reaches out and ruffles Steve's hair. He leans in, with the demeanor of one sharing a secret. "Because he's like you."

Steve twists, fighting the prosthetic but half-heartedly. "The hell do you mean?"

Rumlow slaps the Soldier on the arm almost companionably. "He was a fighter, weren't you, Buck? Word is, he fought for years - decades, even. Wouldn't admit that he was a goner from the moment we got our hands on him. Wouldn't follow orders, wouldn't submit no matter what they did." He flattens a palm on Steve's bare chest, just above his heartbeat. "So, they broke him. That's what we do to fighters, see. There's no place for them in an ordered society. The lab boys put your pal's brain through a blender. Now, he follows orders like a good soldier because that's all he remembers how to do. A waste, but effective."

Rumlow is watching Steve's face, but Nat is watching Barnes's. It's mostly still, but no longer mask-like. There are little flickers of emotion here and there - little blinks or twitches in response to certain words. He gives the largest twitch - almost a flinch - when Rumlow calls him 'Buck.' Rumlow's overplayed his hand, Natasha realizes. Whatever those scientists did to make Barnes forget, it's not foolproof. There's more in there than what Rumlow thought. Probably not enough to rebel or disobey orders, but enough to question, maybe. To reinterpret.

The agent gives some hand signal, and the Winter Soldier forces Steve to his knees. Rumlow steps close and reaches out to cradle Steve's head, drawing it to his hip almost tenderly. "I don't like hurting you, Rogers, but you needed to see him. You need to understand what you might become."

His fingers bury in Steve's hair, scratching and massaging his scalp. "Command's given the order to keep you for reconditioning. Fight it, and they'll scramble you, too. You'll end up like him. I don't want to see that happen." Rumlow's face is a disturbing mixture of gentleness and sadistic satisfaction. "If you want to get out of this in one piece, the only way to do it is to convince the brass that you'll _be good_ on your own. I know you can do it. Just think of it as . . . falling on a grenade." His hands adjust Steve's head a little until he's grinding softly right into his face. "Just make it worth my while, yeah? Be _good_ for me and I'll look out for you. Or end up like our Asset - less than a broken animal."

Steve leans back slowly and stares up at Rumlow with cold rage in his eyes. "His name," he says very quietly, "Is _Bucky Barnes._ And, you're not fit to clean his boots, _Brock._ "

Rumlow's backhand catches him across the cheek hard enough to split it open. The Soldier lets go of his shoulders and a crack that should have caused whiplash mostly gets dissipated as Steve falls to the side. Rumlow kicks him once in the stomach for good measure. "Ungrateful little shit," he snarls, "We'll see how you like your precious _Bucky._ " He turns to the Soldier. "As soon as you can, you fuck him again," he snaps, "Whatever you want, as hard as you want, I don't care. Just clean him up after." The Soldier looks startled, but nods hesitantly.

Rumlow spins on his heel and marches out the door.

For long moments, the Soldier stares down at Steve, lying prone on the concrete, motionless except for his ragged breaths. He's started to sob silently. Steve. As for the Soldier or Barnes or whoever is driving, he seems strangely lost. He turns, picks up his mask, and rubs his thumb over it for a moment before putting it back down. He kneels beside Steve, rubs his flesh hand up and down his back, and murmurs something to him.

_"Easy."_ Natalia recognizes a word from her mother tongue.

Steve's sobbing isn't silent anymore. He turns his head to look up at Barnes. "Bucky, what did they do to you?"

Barnes stares down like he can't remember how to make his face work. _"Come."_

Steve doesn't speak a word of Russian, but he lets Barnes pick him up and lay him out on the cot, face-up. The metal hand is running lightly over Steve's ribs, where Rumlow's boot has already raised a bruise. Steve struggles but not like he's trying to get away. More like he's trying to reach out before remembering that his hands are cuffed under him. He picks his head up instead. "Buck, we've gotta get out of here. They're going to kill my friends."

_"No escape. Escape is punished."_ Both hands are running over Steve's chest, from throat to navel. Tony looks to Nat for a translation, but she just shakes her head. The Soldier's hand slides lower.

Steve twists his body. "Don't. Bucky, please don't."

He's not sobbing anymore, but tears are still leaking from the corners of his eyes, cutting new tracks down his temples. The Soldier lowers himself over him. Kisses his forehead. Strokes his hair. Bends both his legs up at the knee. _"You must comply. Compliance is rewarded."_ He retrieves the lube and coats his right hand thoroughly. _"I will teach you."_

There it is, Natasha realizes sadly. The miracle Steve's hoping for but can't accept. Bucky is still in there. Enough of him to question, not enough to fight. Enough to _reinterpret_ an order but not to disobey it. Rumlow said _"as hard as you want,"_ which apparently is not hard at all, but that's the limit of what Barnes can do. He's still bound by his programming.

She wonders whether it would be kinder to Steve if Barnes just fucked him raw and left.

The Soldier's hand is working in Steve, opening him up much more slowly and carefully than before. "Don't do this."

_"The pain will pass."_

"Bucky."

_"It will be better soon. Just comply."_

Bucky's hand pulls out and he lifts Steve's knees until he can hook them over his shoulders. He's hard somehow, and he pushes in very slow. Steve keens again and the soldier strokes over the tops of his thighs.

_"I must comply."_ He rocks into him slowly. _"I am . . . sorry."_

It's a kind of torture, Natasha knows, fucking him that carefully after what he's just been through. She thinks it might be unintentional on Barnes's part, but she's used the technique herself, back in her pre-moral days. The trick is to get a subject worked up - scared and hurting and starting to go exhausted from the adrenaline. Then, you just treat them gently. Give them a massage or painless sex or a listening ear. The shock of that refuge unlooked-for combines with the after-effects of adrenaline to create acute distress - a sense of being torn, of having no anchor. Steve's crying. So is Barnes.

For long moments, the only sounds are breathing and the soft drag of skin on skin. The Soldier is thrusting slowly and very carefully and Steve is . . . not fighting. He's just lying there and letting it happen, not even giving the perfunctory struggles he'd shown before when he knew it was a lost cause. Natasha worries, again, that this might be enough to break him. But, Steve's not the giving-up sort. Even now, he's starting to speak - his voice quiet, but getting stronger.

"When . . . when this is over, I'm taking you back to Brooklyn." His eyes squeeze briefly shut from discomfort, but he forces them open again. "You won't recognize the place. It's all coffee shops and fancy bookstores. Sometimes both in the same store - did you know that's a thing they do now?"

Barnes looks . . . about like Natasha feels. Fond and exasperated and very, very protective. Steve shifts a little - probably uncomfortable from lying on his bound hands - and the Soldier gently lifts him up until he's straddling his lap. Steve lets him do it. He rests his forehead on Barnes's shoulder and doesn't resist the hands at his hips moving him up and down. "There's so much I want to show you," he whispers.

The Soldier's right hand slides up Steve's back and down again, trying to soothe him. _"The forgetting isn't that bad,"_ he murmurs in what's probably intended as a comforting tone, _"The pain fades fast. Everything else just gets hazy."_

"I know it's not going to undo what's happened, but I am going to make those bastards pay for what they've done to you. I have to. Call it a character flaw."

_"Reconditioning is worse, but it's bearable if you have the right handler."_ He grinds up into Steve, pauses, and sighs. _"I wish I could be your handler. It won't be permitted."_

"I know it seems impossible right now, but we're gonna get through this. Someday, this is all gonna be just a bad memory. Maybe we'll joke about it if we get drunk enough . . . well, if you . . . _can_ you still get drunk?"

There's a very sad smile playing at the edges of the Soldier's lips. He leans in and kisses Steve's forehead again. _"I'll look in on you as often as I can. It's okay if they make you forget me. I'll remember you."_

Steve is mostly moving under his own power, now. Barnes slips his right hand between them and Steve suddenly tenses. "Buck, don't."

_"Shhh. Let me. Just this once."_

Steve must guess the gist of the murmured words because he doesn't object again. He buries his face deeper into the Soldier's skin. "It's gonna be okay, Bucky. I'm here. I'm right here."

_"I'll protect you if I can. For as long as I can."_

When the Winter Soldier comes for the second time, it's just as easy to tell. He surges up into Steve, freezes, and groans very quietly. Only his hand continues moving, and less than a minute later, Steve's face convulses like it's breaking apart. In the aftermath, they're both quiet for a minute. Then the Soldier pulls out and stands, pulling Steve with him. For a moment, Natasha is worried that she'll see that terrible hope in Steve's face - the one that, when extinguished, almost always means the end of a person. His expression is controlled, though. He knows he hasn't gotten through to him - not really. He lets Bucky lead him to the corner of the cell nearest the hose and barely flinches when his cuffs are pressed against the metal bars and engaged.

The Soldier is moving like a robot, now. He's just doing what needs to be done. The cell door opens to his key, and Nat keeps a mental record of the pocket he put it in. He turns on the water but doesn't squeeze the sprayer yet. Steve is trying to brace himself for the icy blast while still sagging from exhaustion. When Bucky steps back into the cell and approaches him, it's a moment before he understands. Barnes pulls him away from the bars. Pauses to steady him. Draws him down into his lap. He squeezes the sprayer just enough that the water trickles and gurgles rather than blasting and moves it up Steve's body, starting from his ankles. He rinses his thighs, his groin, his soiled stomach. Rinses the fear sweat off his chest. Turns him and runs the spray down his back and over his ass, apparently not caring that his own trousers are getting soaked and soiled. Steve lets out a few grunts but holds still as Barnes follows his orders. After, the Soldier lets him drink from the hose, then brings Steve's hands around and cuffs them in front of him. He dries him with his own tank top and the torn pieces of Steve's shirt.

He's _cleaned him up,_ but the Soldier doesn't leave just yet. He stands, leaving Steve to pace seemingly aimlessly for a moment. He picks up the cot, drags it over to the side of the cell nearest Natasha, and presses it up against the bars. Despite everything, she has to suppress the urge to cringe back from him. Ignoring her and Tony, he fetches a blanket - identical to the one Rumlow had given Steve except that Steve _clings_ to this one - and gently leads him over to the cot. Only when Steve is tucked in, still clutching the edge of the blanket with his manacled hands, does the Soldier turn to leave without a word.

As the door clangs shut yet again, Natasha watches Steve. He's taking a few slightly shuddery breaths, but he's not crying anymore. Thanks to the Soldier's rearranging, the cot is now uncomfortably close. If she reached out, she could touch it.

"Steve?" she asks quietly, "Do you . . . need some space?"

There's one more breath like a sigh, then Steve's face emerges as he pushes back the blanket. "No," he says, low and definitive, "Talk to me, Nat. Tell me what we can _use._ "

She and Tony share a look, but they've come to a wordless agreement. Steve sets the rules. They dance to his tune.

So she shares what she knows of the Winter Soldier. Tony chips in with some observations about the arm. They rehash everything again, still looking for the opening that isn't there and speculating on how a possibly-flippable enhanced assassin may play into things. They try to pick the magnetic cuffs and only succeed in locking them to the bars, but that's okay because Steve's face is loosening with every second they're near. She's not dumb enough to think that he's healing. At best, this is an emotional tourniquet, and when it's gone there'll be hell to pay. But, for now, it's enough.


	4. The Past Is Present

Tony is quite proud of himself for resisting the urge to bang his head into the concrete floor. Another day and it's more of the same here at Uganda's Hannoi Hilton: no room service, terrible view, and nothing to listen to but the soothing sounds of his second-best friend being raped. It's Robo-Barnes doing the deed again, because Rumlow is a sick fuck who should die. Boss Jackboot isn't in the room for this one, but he's left explicit instructions that _the Asset_ is following with an alarming degree of thoroughness.

 _"Fuck his ass hard,"_ Rumlow had said as Barnes knelt bleeding on the floor and Steve glared daggers from behind him. _"Leave bruises and make sure they_ stick. _Break his bones if he struggles. But, no blood. No mushy stuff either."_ And the most fucked-up thing about it is that Rumlow just turned around and left, apparently not doubting for a minute that he would be obeyed, and not caring to see it happen.

A dull _thud_ makes Tony look up. The Soldier has slammed Steve's head into the floor. For a moment, Tony's worried that Steve struggled and the Soldier is going to obey orders starting with his _neck._ No more blows come, though, unless you count the unchanged pistoning of his hips into Cap's upturned ass.

Tony goes back to staring at his feet. His palms ache from where his nails have been digging into them. The gash on his arm is still seeping, despite sacrificing Bruce's left sleeve to bandage it. It's infected, maybe. So fucking stupid that while Steve Rogers is over there getting his ass wrecked for the fourth time, Tony is stuck in here worrying about a one-inch cut. _Shit,_ he's so fucking useless.

Across the cell, Natasha is staring at Steve, her face more expressionless than the Winter Soldier's. God, but she scares him sometimes. She's been doing that since day one - scanning each fucked-up scene intently like she's trying to find Waldo. Sometimes, she even brings up her observations in the post-mortems with Steve afterwards, which just leaves Tony feeling sick.

_"Remember that time when he stopped to get the extra lube packet? I think there was a set of keys in that same pocket."_

_"Rumlow put his hand on his gun five times while Barnes was on top of you. Either he was really worried you'd overpower him, or he doesn't trust the Winter Soldier as far as he pretends."_

_"That guy from the first day, the second one? Watch out for him. He's pissed Rumlow didn't share that evening. If he gets the chance again, he'll take it out on you."_

What's worse than the observations (or the fact that that Nat even notices these things, _Jesus,_ ) is the way Steve kept nodding and thanking her, as if she's genuinely contributing something useful. As if his own torture and rape is a lock that Steve might be able to pick if he could just get enough practice and coaching.

Steve's started sobbing. Not loud, but enough to be heard. The Asset growls something at him in Russian. Tony looks to Nat and she shakes her head helplessly. "'Hold still,'" she translates. It's been like that since this started. Not like yesterday's murmured sentences - Natasha had refused to translate those, but he'd made them sound like endearments. Today, the Soldier is all business, saying nothing but snapped commands. He's hit Steve once - a hard blow to the eye that'll make for a spectacular shiner - and he's fucking him on his hands and knees in the middle of the cell rather than the comparative luxury of the cot.

He hears the squelch of more lube going in, which Tony guesses is better than the alternative, and when he glances at Nat, he finds her still staring with the same measuring gaze. "God, Widow, could you give him some fucking privacy?" He makes sure to keep his voice too low for Steve to overhear because he's not an asshole. _He_ doesn't go around staring at people when they're . . . well.

She gives him a look that's a little sad and not at all affronted and then goes back to staring, and Tony's looking for a way to explain that normal people don't like to be watched like this when they're vulnerable, but he can't find a way to explain it that doesn't position her as _abnormal_ by comparison. When you've seen and done enough, he supposes, the concept of shame starts to feel alien.

Those goddamn cuffs. There has to be a way to get them open. The mechanism is probably insultingly simple, but there's nothing Tony can do about that unless he can access the wiring. It's some kind of electromagnet system, probably, but the fuckers made it _biometrically locked._ Barnes's fingerprint clearly opens it, and Rumlow's probably does too, but neither of them is exactly eager to shake the hand of the great Tony Stark at the moment. Still, Tony could bypass that and whatever other nasty failsafes they have in place if he could just _get under the casing._ They took turns during the night - first Tony's fingernails, then Natasha's, then the zipper from Bruce's pants and a rolled up shiv made from a plastic bottle, but nothing's been able to crack open that tiny steel control panel.

Teeth. _Fuck,_ he's an idiot, isn't tooth enamel stronger than steel? He needs to try _biting_ the damn thing and if he can get it in just the right spot, he might be able to weaken the case enough to crack it open and get to those tempting wires beneath. Yeah, he might crack a few incisors in the process, but Tony has very good dentists, and that's a small price to pay, and _shit_ what is that sound? He steals a glance, realizes that it's grunting, and looks back down at his lap again.

He knows how to do _this_ , even if he doesn't have a goddamned clue how to get them out of here. He knows how to not make it worse. Unlike Madame Voyeur over there. Yinsen . . .

(His mind stutters, but he forces himself to finish the thought because Steve is _not_ Yinsen and Tony is _not_ going to lose him.)

When they did this to Yinsen, he always wanted to be left alone, after. They'd sit on opposite sides of the cave, Tony fiddling with wiring or sketching blueprints, neither of them talking for hours. All the shit Tony had put him through, and the only time Yinsen ever snapped at him was . . . after. When he'd asked if he was alright. Stupid question, but still.

"You can fight this, Buck."

And this . . . this is the part of _not watching_ that Tony knows is entirely for his own protection. He wants to clap his hands over his ears, he wants to stab through the eardrums, he wants to climb into a hole in the ground just so he can escape the recurring torture of Steve's progressively weaker pleading.

"You're stronger than them - they're _afraid_ of you for godssake. You can fight back, I'll help you."

Some instinct makes Tony lift his eyes just in time to see Steve start to twist. He's probably just trying to look Barnes in the face, but that's not how Barnes takes it. The Soldier pulls out fast, flips Steve roughly onto his back, and pins his hands above his head. Metal fingers are digging into Steve's wrist, blanching the skin, somehow, impossibly, _bending_ the ham-sized limb while the Soldier glares down at him. " _Ne zastavlyay menya._ " His face tightens like _he's_ the one being brutalized. " _Ne zastavlyay menya._ Don't make me."

Steve's face crumples a little further and somehow this makes Tony hate the Winter Soldier so much more than everything that's come before. _Make him._ Sure. Yeah, Barnes has clearly had a rough go of it, both those are _his_ fingers raising the required bruises, _his_ weight pinning Steve to the floor, _his_ cock dripping with lube and a few _unavoidable_ traces of Steve's blood, and _God,_ this is why he doesn't look! (No. He doesn't look for Steve's sake. It's about _Steve._ )

One thing Tony _cannot stand_ is people who try to deny responsibility for their actions. Sooner or later, a man has to answer for the harm he's caused, and it doesn't matter if he wasn't in control because he _should_ have been. It doesn't matter if he didn't know because he _should have._ So, no, Steve is not _making_ his former best friend break his fucking wrist. That's on Barnes.

(He doesn't want to - God does he not want to - but Tony remembers the grip of hands on his neck and water in his eyes, in his throat, and how goddamn easy it would have been to just _comply._ That sense - battered down by his self-preservation instinct alone - that any price was worth it if he could just _make it stop._ )

Steve's not struggling. Barnes lets go of his wrist.

(He doesn't want to - _shit, fucking HELL_ does he not want to, but he remembers Rumlow's face less than an hour ago. His voice as he yelled _"You wanna be a fighter, Rogers? This is what fighters turn into!"_ all while whipping his baton across Barnes's face over and over while Barnes knelt and didn't so much as raise a hand to stop it.)

"Don't," Steve's saying over and over again, "Don't, don't, don't."

Beneath the bruises and dried blood, Barnes's face is conflicted. Tony half wants him to just shove it back in so it will be _over,_ but he doesn't. He looks left. Looks right. Climbs slowly to his feet, drawing Steve with him. When he approaches the bars - approaches _him_ \- Tony scrambles back in spite of himself. The Soldier's expression becomes a little annoyed. Still, when he pushes Steve to kneel on the cot, his hands are comparatively gentle. Steve's wrists come apart as he disengages the magnetic lock, and Steve doesn't struggle as he locks the shackles to the bars, one at a time.

For a moment, the Soldier just kneels behind him, his forehead resting between Steve's shoulder blades. Then he lifts his head and whispers something unintelligible in his ear. The Asset's hands come forward, gripping the bars just above Steve's hands, and their bodies jerk in tandem as the Asset enters him again.

Steve has picked up his head and is looking around, his gaze beseeching and so fucking lost. Tony tries to avoid it, but then the Soldier slams his hand against the bars, making them all jump. 

Those dead brown eyes are locked on _Tony,_ and they're angry and expectant like he wants something. After a moment, he leans back and moves his hands to Steve's hips, a deliberate and telegraphed movement. The last thing Tony wants is to piss off the cyborg super-assassin with orders to torture Steve Rogers, but he can't imagine what he _wants._ For Tony to participate - help him break Steve down as _he's_ been forced to help? That doesn't track. For all the Soldier's brutality over the past half hour, for all of Tony's uncharitable-but-also-totally-true indictments on his character, he's never given the impression that he _wants_ to hurt or humiliate Steve. So, why? Why move Steve here, to the edge of the cell, when he could have moved the cot anywhere he wanted?

The answer comes to Tony in a rush: because he needs them to do what he cannot. Because he's _under orders_ and they're the type of orders that would make him take a truncheon to the face. Because Rumlow is the world's largest abscessed scrotum and he told Barnes _no mushy stuff._

Barnes dragged him over here because he needs Tony or Nat to comfort Steve. Because he can't.

If he were Natasha, he'd probably be turning that insight over in his brain, trying to work out the line that's been drawn for Barnes - which words he can reinterpret and which he can't - in the hopes of using him in the future. 

It's all Tony can do to keep last night's PowerBar where it belongs. Barnes is rutting into Steve again and again, making the cot rock. Sweat is dripping down both of them, and it's hard to say which face looks more miserable. Barnes doesn't get it because he's just as fucked up in the head as their Red Room graduate. When shit like this is happening, people _don't want to be seen._

Yinsen didn't want to be seen.

But Steve's not Yinsen and . . . and maybe they tick differently.

Belatedly, Tony thinks of how each time he was freed, Steve would forsake the fifteen anonymous feet of his cell and come collapse next to theirs. He thinks of his voice, all but pleading with Natasha to keep strategizing - to keep talking to him. He thinks of trying to pick the cuffs the night before and how Steve let them keep going long after it was clear that they'd failed - how he seemed to _lean into_ every accidental brush of fingers against his wrist.

Tony read him wrong. He's been treating Steve like a leper in the name of respecting his _privacy_ when all Steve wanted was for someone to comfort him.

A man is responsible for the mistakes he makes. He's responsible for setting them right, even if it's never enough in the end. Though he'd rather jump into an active volcano, Tony makes himself step closer to them. To Steve.

He clears his throat. "Steve." _("Tony," he'd said just moments after the unimaginable stopped happening. Checking that_ he _was okay when Tony wasn't the one who . . .)_ "Steve. Buddy. Can you look at me?" Blue eyes lock on his and Steve's face is so pathetically grateful that Tony hates himself all over again. 

"Steve, it's gonna be okay." Pointless and useless and probably false, but it's what people say. Except, Tony is suddenly realizing that no one has _told_ Steve that. He's been telling _them_ for days. "It'll be over in a minute. And you're gonna be okay." He tentatively lays his own hands over Steve's. The touch of skin that's not Pepper's always throws him for a loop (he doesn't like to be _handed_ things) but he'd suffer much worse if it would ease Cap's burdens a little.

Steve's eyes don't leave his. "I can't stop him."

"I know. It's not your fault."

"I can't help him."

Tony looks away, then forces himself to look back. "It's like you keep saying, we're gonna get our window soon, and then we'll be free as the birds. You just have to hang on until our chance."

"He's my friend. Tony . . . he's my best friend."

"Look . . . there's nothing about this that isn't messed up. If it helps, he'd rather be chewing broken glass right now than doing what he's doing. But, it's going to _pass._ Any minute now, we'll see our window."

"I'm sorry . . ." Steve's voice chokes off in a groan, but before Tony can respond, he finishes the thought, "I can't leave him."

" _Steve . . ._ "

"I can't just abandon him with what they're doing. If we get our chance, I'll get you and Nat out. Bruce and Clint too if I can, but . . . you'll have to come back for me. I won't go without him."

And Tony kind of wants to scream and rage at him because there's no horror quite like this one and it's _Steve._ He hears Yinsen's voice all over again _"This was always the plan, Stark."_

But, this is _Steve._

"No one's getting left behind." It feels like he's speaking past knives in his throat.

"You can't make me leave him."

Tony's fingers tighten on Steve's. "Aren't you listening to me, you big spangly _idiot_? I said _no one._ You're coming, he's coming, we'll have a whole fucked-up family reunion in Vegas, but you've gotta _hold on for me._ "

Steve gasps a breath as he considers this. "How?"

"Still working on the details, but I'm nothing if not resourceful."

"Tony . . ."

"No! If it's not okay for you to leave him, why the hell should it be okay for me to leave you? We're taking him with us. I'll descramble his brain if it's the last thing I do."

"You'd do that for him?"

"I'd do that for _you._ " He leans close and presses his forehead against Steve's. "But, you've gotta stay strong, okay? Be the fighter who doesn't give up. Be the guy that _he_ fought for."

Steve closes his eyes. He goes perfectly still, except for where Barnes's thrusts are still rocking him back and forth.

And then it all goes to hell.

Tony has just enough time to realize his miscalculation before Steve is moving impossibly fast, drawing his legs up and shoving them against the bars for leverage. Tony doesn't know how he manages it - they've tried with all three of them combining their strength and haven't managed to budge those mag-cuffs - but he strains for a moment like a body builder doing a dead-lift and then his hands are coming loose and he's throwing himself backwards into the confused Barnes. Tony barely has time to think _no, you idiot,_ before Barnes is reacting and Tony's sure he's gotten Steve Rogers killed because that's just the sort of a fuck-up he is.

Barnes is on top of Steve in less than an instant, and he's slapping the cuffs back together to pin Steve's arms. He's gripping Steve's left arm with both hands - one at the elbow and one at the wrist - and his once-blank face is anguished. " _Ne zastavlyay menya!_ Don't!"

Steve stares up at him, without a hint of fear. "I'm sorry, Bucky. I'm done making this easier on you."

Does breaking his nose count as breaking a bone? Barnes's right fist connects solidly, releasing a gush of blood, but Steve barely flinches. "Help us, Buck. Help us fight them. Or break me like they want you to, because I'm not giving up. Not ever."

Barnes's breaths are coming raggedly. His left fist is clenching and unclenching. Clenching.

Unclenching.

Red light suddenly flares from an ignored corner of the room and an old-school alarm starts blaring. The moment broken, the Soldier stands, tucks himself away, and reaches for his discarded mask. "Bucky!" Steve yells, but he's striding towards the door.

" _Soldat!_ " Natasha's voice stays him, just for a moment. " _Ne ostavlyay yego!_ "

He turns and walks out the door.


	5. Things That Go Bump In Broad Daylight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains rather excessive amounts of foul language, brief racism, and bad guys dying.

By the time the order comes through to evacuate the base, Rumlow has known for half an hour that they're fucked. They were all set up to hold off an aerial assault. They'd stocked up on RPGs and anti-aircraft guns, all on the theory that if it came to that they'd be retreating while repelling either SHIELD quinjets or War Machine raining fire.

But the attack, when it comes, doesn't come from the air. It comes from the fucking jungle.

They never see the bad guys, and that's what's getting to the men. Intermittently but with increasing frequency, their shaky perimeters are rocked by either small arms fire or _fucking sci-fi energy weapons_ coming from seemingly all corners of that innocuous blanket of leaves. They lose whole patrol units without a survivor to report back. When someone _does_ make it back in, they always report the same thing.

A dark shape. A goddamned Dark and Ominous Shape that drops out of the trees or springs up out of the ground and snatches teammates standing two feet apart without their buddies having a chance to do a thing.

The first thing Rumlow does when he realizes what's happening is check the cell to make sure that Rogers is still locked up tight and crying it out.

As he watches, a blue flame with _no apparent source_ suddenly erupts from one of the ATVs, deep frying a half-dozen men. He waves the geeks from the lab to move faster, piling box after box of notes around the tripod structure of the weapon. Two grunts heave in Barton next - or what's left of him. He's moaning and curled in on himself, so he doesn't make any trouble as they strap him in the truck bed with the extra food.

Rumlow finds the asset hauling crates of weapons out of the burning ATV, apparently not noticing the many places where embers have burned through his clothes and skin. "Soldier!" he barks, earning him the man's blank-faced attention. "Hit the lower level and get the prisoners out here. I want them all bound and I want them on this truck. You have five minutes." The asset nods and springs toward the door of the compound in a few leaping strides. Rumlow grabs the two men who'd brought him Barton. "You. Go with him. If he deviates from his mission, zap him. If that doesn't stop him, shoot him." They 'yessir' their way after him without a second thought.

A motherfucking _ceremonial spear-thing_ flies out of the trees, lodges in the dirt just ahead of the lead Hummer, and promptly explodes into green flame. "It's him," one of the lab geeks says in a tone of deep terror.

"Can't be!" another speaks with an edge of hysteria, "They _never_ leave their borders!"

"Could we be over the border? We picked this place because it's secluded . . ."

"We scouted it twenty times! The border is ten miles from here! It _can't_ be him!"

Rumlow ignores them. That's their only exit route turned into a goddamned burning hellscape. He charges toward the burning edge of the convoy and starts shouting orders, trying to get the wreckage cleared out so the rest of them can get past. There's a _hissing_ sound and a bolt of red light streaks by right above his head. He grabs a rifle and starts firing blindly into the little copse he thinks it came from. The men rally, seeing someone ready to fight. Other muzzle flashes join his, twinkling and booming under the noonday sun.

Not twenty feet away from him, a _dark shape_ bursts from the leaf cover and grabs one of the greener agents by the throat. Brock yells and directs a burst of fire at center mass. The captured agent gurgles out his lungs in a red spray, but the bullets that go through seem to bounce harmlessly off of black flesh, like mosquitoes thwarted by a sweatshirt. It's gone before he can get another shot at it.

A dark shape.

Attacking from the jungle.

From everywhere and nowhere at once.

Too fast to be seen.

And it's definitely not Rogers.

Shit, Brock _hates_ this part of Africa.

"What the _fuck_!" he screams at the top of his lungs, "We're not after yours!"

There's a moment of silence, then another red bolt sends half the remaining agents ducking for cover. Not Brock Rumlow.

"This ain't your territory, you fucking animal! Go crawl back in your hole and let us go!"

Another ATV blows up, this one fortunately at the _back_ of the convoy.

There's a loaded truck just in front of him. It's mostly full of odds and ends. Office supplies. Spare food. The prisoners' gear.

The prisoners' gear.

He springs into the back of the truck, tears through three boxes before he finds it. That fucking cheesy-ass spangled shield that he might or might not have wiped clean of his jizz before packing.

"Is this what you wanted, you fucking savage?!!" He jumps on top of the cab and throws it with all his strength at the place where he thought the animal was. "Take your goddamned frisbee, you uppity prick! Who gives a shit?"

Not him, apparently. A moment later, a fancy car belonging to Brock's now-dead boss explodes in a lovely miniature mushroom cloud of green.

Only two trucks and a handful of guys left from a facility that started with a hundred, but Brock is still standing, so there's still a chance to come out on top. There's movement behind him and he jumps off the truck and sags with relief as the Asset strides up the stairs. He's got Rogers over one shoulder, Banner over the other, and he's herding Stark and Romanov along with a pistol in the former's rib cage. Brock expects Nat to start fighting as soon as she sees the state they're in, but apparently she's going soft. She hops into the back of the truck with Stark a moment behind her and both of them acting like they're just skipping out before the paparazzi show up.

The Asset tosses Banner down onto a couple of half empty boxes. Rogers is awake and stirring a little, but clearly in no state to get away. "Soldier!" Rumlow bellows, "The hostile is in the forest at your three o'clock! You need to engage to give the vehicles time to get away!" The Soldier stares at him, his arms tightening protectively around Captain America's bare bum. He clearly doesn't want to leave him in the middle of the chaos. "Soldier, drop your fucktoy and go, or I swear to god I'll wipe you so hard you forget how to _breathe!_ "

Rogers is pushing on his chest and whispering something.

Brock doesn't see the Asset yank a syringe out of his pocket and jam it into Banner's leg, but he sure as hell sees the resulting chaos. Black Widow kills two men with her elegant thighs and Stark shoves Barton's battered body off the truck like he's skipped out on the cab fare and _fucking Steve Rogers_ who just a moment ago was a half-animated blowup doll is grabbing Banner _and_ Barnes and diving for the shelter of a rock formation and the lab geeks are cowering but unwilling to give up their seats on the last train out of this hellhole _especially_ after the truck ahead of them explodes, and then there's a roar and something green flings itself over the rocks. It's not as big as Banner's monster usually gets - just eight feet tall and taking slurring steps thanks to the residual effects of the knock-out cocktail, but it's green and built and has all the attitude of the full-sized Hulk.

Brock jumps behind the wheel and floors the gas pedal so hard one of the guards falls out the back and is promptly hulk-smashed. He's gassing it for the road, swerving around burning debris and dead buddies and then he's sure he's dead because out of the jungle runs the _motherfucking Black Panther_ carrying _Captain America's goddamn shield_ , but the second he whips it at the windshield, the Hulk launches himself through the air, catches it, and lands, roaring at the Panther, who promptly backs off and then it's just Barnes and Rogers racing after him and the latter is _still buck-ass naked_ but breaking thirty miles an hour on his _bare fucking feet._

There's a couple of the protective helmets under the front seat. He grabs one. "Set off the weapon!" he screams at the lab techs in the back.

"It's not grounded!" one of them wails, "One full-strength blast will fry the whole system and we'll never rebuild it without Barton!"

"If we don't do something about the _goddamn Avengers_ on our ass, you'll never build anything again!"

As if to prove his point, the Winter Soldier launches himself, catches the bed of the truck with that metal arm, and swings forward, looking for trouble. The lab boys duck under helmets, say their prayers, and slap sweaty hands on a beautiful red button. Blue electricity lances over every inch of the beach-chair sized machine, frying it like something straight out of Star Wars. A yellow wave of energy erupts from the focusing crystal at the top and shoots out in all directions, scattering across the whole battlefield before fizzling against the trees. Every person or beast not wearing either a filtering hood or a vibranium-mesh helmet falls to the ground and does not get up.

Barnes falls forward into the truck.

Rogers falls backward into the dirt.

Brock Rumlow doesn't stop running.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

In the aftermath of the struggle, T'Challa stands over the fallen fighters - the five captured prisoners, less the one he'd failed to save. The one riddled with radiation has shrunk back to his normal size and color. T'Challa has dragged them all together, in a safe alcove, after disposing of their tormentors where they'll never be found. It's likely a waste of time, but he's re-dressed those lacking clothes in whatever he could scrounge of their enemies' attire. They don't deserve to wake up the way that they fell.

The smallest man is in the worst shape. He's covered in bruises, his clever fingers sticking out at all angles. A perfectly regular series of electrical burns near his hairline speak of systemic, targeted torture, or perhaps some barbaric medical procedure. T'Challa uses his field first aid kit to reset the fingers and stimulate the nerves to regrow as good as new.

The largest man . . . well, there is little to be done, besides offering him some dignity. The invaders' last weapons blast likely took care of that. It was an amnesia bolt from what he can tell - crude, but advanced for Outsider technology. He won't know what was done to him. Sometimes, not knowing is a mercy.

Among the dozens of shattered radios, it's impossible to know which one the woman used for her desperate distress call. It doesn't matter. T'Challa pulls out his own spare communicator, sets it to the frequencies used most by SHIELD's Nick Fury, and places it beneath her arm.

He really shouldn't be out this far - especially not on some ill-thought out mercy mission to interfere in the Outsiders' squabbles. It would have served him right if that radiation-beast had killed him. He can easily see the fear and disappointment that will line his father's face, should he ever find out. But, what was he to do? Five people had trekked to the ends of their earth in hopes of stopping the monsters preying on his neighbors - doing the work that _Wakanda_ ought to be doing - and when they fell into enemy hands, it was fear of Wakanda - of _him_ \- that kept would-be rescuers at a safe, useless distance.

He looks down at the shield in his hands. It's crude - cruder even than the amnesia weapon - but the vibranium is of highest quality and it all but sings in his hands. It's stolen property. It belongs to his people by birthright. He ought to take it back to the King as the explanation for his reckless venture.

He places it, gently, over the largest man's chest. "Until we meet again, rest well," he says softly, before vanishing into the forest.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

They wake up in the jungle at almost the same moment with no memory of how they got there.

"Warlord," Natasha is saying dimly, "Alien tech in east Africa. Somalia?"

Steve looks up at the greenery around them, at the blasted ruin of a base. "Uganda."

"This is . . ." Clint tries to push himself up and abruptly chokes back a scream. He stares fixedly at ten fingers encased in ten metal splints. "Is anyone else hurt?"

A long moment of silence.

"I've got what feels like the hangover from a three-day bender," Bruce is slurring, "Kind of fun. Haven't had that in a while."

"Cuts and bruises," Natasha says. She glances over at Steve. "Some more than others."

Steve lies still, staring at the canopy and turning his aches and bruises into a story.

"Just me, then," Clint gripes, "Again. Fantastic."

Steve lets it drop.

There's a quinjet touching down within the hour, and only when they're safely tucked on board does Steve say anything, and then only to Natasha. He has to look out for his team. If . . . if it's happened to anyone else - anyone without super-soldier immunity - they need to know so that precautions can be taken. 

She subtly makes the rounds. They're all fine.

A week later, when the forensic investigation from the remaining parts of the base comes through, she intercepts it and quietly takes Steve aside. The simple metal bars and glow-in-the-dark fluids don't spark any particular thoughts or insights. It's probably better that way, she tells him. Some things are better to let go, and so he does.

A month later, with the warlord long-deposed and no evidence on the source of his brief, alien advantage, Steve chides himself for his reluctance and closes the case file.

It's six long months before he finds Bucky again.

Bucky remembers all of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who've enjoyed this with me. Forgive me the shameless amnesia plot device; I wanted to keep this canon-compliant. Plus, I needed a good dose of bad guys dying after all the crap I put Our Heroes through. I'm playing with the idea of a continuation or post-Civil War timestamp exploring recovered memories and having the characters deal with the fallout. For now, though, this is where I leave them. Feedback is much appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated.
> 
> From the hydratrashmeme:  
> [Prompt](http://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/1504.html?thread=1559520#cmt1559520)


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